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Busy day at the office yesterday and I had almost no time to play FM when I got home. I'm way behind on this thread and if I missed your update I apologize.

Jaffa: I was just messing with you on the corner glitch thing, hence the J/K
Kazpeer: Good solid start you can build from. I totally understand the team not being good when you want them to concept....

sheeshy: unlucky mate

Welsh Wizard: Glad to see your team has found its form! 2.4m in the red???? o.O I hope you can avoid administration! Perhaps you'll get lucky and the debt will spark a takeover to clear it.

jsar: I absolutely hate that. It annoys the heck out of my when my defenders just sit there and wait for the opposition to go for the ball. It's even worse when my player is running for it at full speed, then for whatever reason decides to slow up until the defender catches up to him. Then he finally kicks it back into gear, but by that point hes beat anyways....

Gypsum: you have a youth academy?? Can I send my Chippenham players to it as well?

deadfncat: Congrats on promotion. Glad to see the 3rd season BSS trend still continues!

Yiddo!: oooh days off are good. We get Thursday and Friday off this week, so I'm hoping a can get a season, or possibly 2 done by the end of the weekend

Ridleys: o.O I don't know how you could stand that. I would be flipping out with 4 goals conceded, whether we managed to score 5 or not (more than likely not lol). I'd expect that turned out very well for the fan day though. My board still haven't had a single fan day.... its probably one of the reasons our attendance sucks lol.

Jsar: Congrats on back to back promotions! I'm glad to see you were able to turn that early season form around. It can be quite the challenge to get the guys re-motivated when moral is in the dumps.

dafuge: Apologies for not having made the time to read through your thread yet. I hope your doing well! Should have time in the next few days (Thanksgiving holiday in the US) and I hope to get caught up on your journey.

My first season in BSP has taken a massive down turn, after 18 games I was just 3 points offthe play offs in 8th place now i'm 17th and on a 10 game winless run and dont know how to stop it!

When I get to the end of my season (about an hour or so after the Spurs game tonight) I'll do my update and I will be able to talk endlessly about streaks, winning, losing, not winning, not losing, my team is the streakiest ever.

Originally Posted by jsar

in the season review John Scarborough had highest Avrg rating in the BSP! nice

Well done on promotion mate

Originally Posted by westothebpow

I remember, I was flying high as Billericay

Yeah it would be tricky to constantly monitor. I've seen that some people have already made it to the Premiership, any chance of calming down?

Yeah, if you could all calm down and let us catch up that would be great.

Ridleys: o.O I don't know how you could stand that. I would be flipping out with 4 goals conceded, whether we managed to score 5 or not (more than likely not lol). I'd expect that turned out very well for the fan day though. My board still haven't had a single fan day.... its probably one of the reasons our attendance sucks lol.

I was a bit annoyed about losing a 4-1 lead to be honest, late winners are always the best though, i jumped off my seat

Finished 8th in the Championship, pretty happy with that! But it makes us sound closer to the playoffs than we actually were. The top 6 were almost in their own division! There were 10 points between 6th and 7th. Still, if we can get more wins, rather than draws next season we'll be right up there.

oooer, consortium has just taken the club over and the new chairman sends me the following message;

"New chairman Jamie Thompson has thanked you for your patience during what has undoubtedly been a stressful time for those involved with the club. Thompson informs you that around 90K has been pumped into the club's coffers and a new transfer budget has been calculated. Thompson has added however that it was always the intention to appoint a new manager following the takeover and a decision on your future will be taken shortly."

Well that'd be a **** take to be honest, I'm sitting 10th in L1 after 3 promotions, if I get sacked I'll quit this game

UPDATE: They kept me on, something about high level of support within the club yadda yadda....silly that it would even be considered to be honest.

We had a pretty solid season throughout, staying around mid-table for the most part. Usually, you would think we would have had a chance of nipping into the playoffs. But this year there was such a divide between the top 6 clubs and everyone else that there was no chance. By the end of the season the gap between 6th and 7th was 10 points, which is vast for what is typically a close division. Our biggest problem was getting so many draws, if we can convert a few of those to wins next season then I am confident we'll have a shot at the playoff places.

Finances - Definitely helped by the new stadium and extra Championship money, our finances are now consistently healthy. Despite a large loan

League average attendance: 10719

Star players;

Cristian Fabbiani - ST - Signed as a free agent in the summer, Fabbiani has been a sensation since arriving at Chippenham stadium. His flair, trickery and penchent for spectacular goals made hima fan favourite within the first half of the season. And while his form dipped towards the end of the campaign, the 33 year-old striker still bagged a total of 24 goals with 12 assists. A magnificent signing for us.

Lee McEwan - AMR - After making the tricky transition from striker to winger last season, McEwan repaid my faith in him with interest in this campaign. The former Arsenal youngster was in stunning form throughout his second season at Chippenham with 18 goals and 11 assists. But most impressive is this lad's engine, he runs forever and rarely misses a game or needs to be rested. A 7.24 rating for a player just shy of 50 games in a season is a remarkable achievement by anyone's standard, and it was recognised by the league as he was named in the Championship best XI.

Lee Brooks - DC - A revelation last season, a sensation in this one. The Chelsea youth product was a pivotal part of our squad yet again with his consistency at centre-back defying his age. Such an important player for us with his Carragher-esque late tackles and threat from set-pieces, he was worth every bit of his 7.11 rating. At this rate, the 19 year-old has a very bright future.

With our solid financial footing and a decent squad, hopefull i'll be able to push on next season and turn a few of our 20 draws into wins. I don't think we are too far off the playoff places, especially as an attacking side, but we need solidity at the back. A more dynamic ball-winning midfielder would be a big improvement, as well as improved full-backs. These are positions where i've traditionally had problem finding good players in this challenge. I'm also hoping for some youth products to come through our new academy, but you never know...

oooer, consortium has just taken the club over and the new chairman sends me the following message;

"New chairman Jamie Thompson has thanked you for your patience during what has undoubtedly been a stressful time for those involved with the club. Thompson informs you that around 90K has been pumped into the club's coffers and a new transfer budget has been calculated. Thompson has added however that it was always the intention to appoint a new manager following the takeover and a decision on your future will be taken shortly."

Well that'd be a **** take to be honest, I'm sitting 10th in L1 after 3 promotions, if I get sacked I'll quit this game

UPDATE: They kept me on, something about high level of support within the club yadda yadda....silly that it would even be considered to be honest.

I had exactly the same thing happen to me. It was a worrying time while I was waiting to find out!

Well that was close! We started the season very well and were in and around the play offs after about 15 games, we were playing well and scoring goals, then we hit a brick wall, a 10 game winless saw us slide from 8th down to 17th, the rest of the season was spent in a abttle to get clear of the relegation zone, somthing we never quite managed to do, but at leat we never went into it. The main reason we stayed up was due to the goals from Bagshaw and Poole again, with 17 from Bagshaw and 22 from Poole, we let in 85 goals in the league so it is clear where our problem was this season,and where we need to improve next year.

CUPS: Once again nothing to see here, in both cup comps we drew Bromley at home before drawing then being knocked out away from home - I hate cups!

Left Forward is either a Deep Lying Forward, Advanced Forward or Target Man.
Right Forward is always a Poacher.
LM is either a Support Winger, or a Supporting Wide Midfielder
LCM is a Deep Lying Playmaker(Support)
RCM is an an attacking midfielder role(where I use my 17 pace/14 finishing amazing Chris Garner.
RM is also a supporting wide midfielder.
Both LD and RD are on Automatic Fullback.
Both RCD and LCD are Central Defenders(Defend)
Standard GK Defend since all of my keepers lack pace which is fine

I play a fluid philosophy with hard tackling, zone marking, high pressure, and no time wasting. No offside trap or counter attacking. Normal width and tempo.
I might start tweaking corner plays and free kick plays this year.
Mostly it's just getting the right guys to play how you want to play(which means tons and tons of scouting, and getting frustrated.)
I absolutely am against any sort of defensive formation, as the other two formations I have trained in are a 3-5-2(which I used last year), and a 4-3-3.

Thanks for the reply. I'm using a similar system at moment with a few more player instructions.

With regards to corner tactics - that's usually my strongest point. I play FML which is a very good environment for getting the details of your tactics spot on, but no corner tactics in this challenge get me a particularly high number of goals. I'm guess that it's because I'm still in League 2 - such "advanced" tactics don't usually become useful until at least the Championship. So it's probably a good time for you to start with them.

anyone else having problems with players not closing down the opposition, just backing of them constantly and letting them play in front of them, and also players not chasing balls, so i mean like a ball rolls in front of them say a clearance from a corner and they kinda just stand there and look at it until one of the opposition goes for it then they might possibly try and chase it then? is like they dont see it until someone else is chasing it.
If any of the above makes sense, dont know how to explain it any better! might have to try and find a clip.

I personally haven't. Find the offending players and tweak their Mentality and Closing Down. Mentality isn't just about attacking intent - it's actually mainly how far up the pitch the particular player tends to reside. And Closing Down is obviously how much they close down! Getting the balance of these two sliders right is the most important thing for every single player.

Pllayer roles (e.g. Poacher, Advanced Forward) are just slider presets, and usually they need tweaking.

I used to do this years ago but it started taking me hours to update. Bit of a shame we lost the website really. Even the domain has expired now

I could easily get a site up with a table of everyone's standings that we can all edit. For anyone who wants to update their progress, I could PM them a password which lets them update their team's progress record.

Glad to have made it as far as I have to be honest! Doncaster current sit 4th in League 1...

Originally Posted by wriches

I could easily get a site up with a table of everyone's standings that we can all edit. For anyone who wants to update their progress, I could PM them a password which lets them update their team's progress record.

I could easily get a site up with a table of everyone's standings that we can all edit. For anyone who wants to update their progress, I could PM them a password which lets them update their team's progress record.

Basically everyone else has gotten at least 1-2 promotions and I'm still in the BSS, so the usual :P

I think if you ever win promotion from the BSS the whole of time and space will simply cease to exist

We're trying to find our feet in L2. 11 points from 11 games, sitting 20th in the table. There is promise there though as we beat Barnsley (2-0) and Norwich (3-1) in the League Cup and took Aston Villa into extra time in the 3rd round before they eventually sneaked past us. We just can't seem to put that same sort of performance into our league games. Going to be a long, hard season.

When I went off It was March and my debt is showing again. 1mil or so in the red. Stadium size is not really helping us as we have had 16 out of 18 sell-outs so far. Main thing is where is the money going to come from to solve that problem?

My last two games have been utterly ridiculous. At home against Wrexham, 3-0 down at half time, gave the players a kick up the arse and they responded brilliantly and we led 4-3 with ten minutes left. It looked like we were going to hold on for a massive win, but Wrexham scored a 94th minute equaliser. Then off to face Cheltenham. We were 3-0 down even quicker this time, inside 34 minutes. We grabbed one back just before half time and then scored another two in the second half, stealing a 3-3 draw.

Welsh Wizard: The scary part is even I'm not doing it realistically heheh. The players I have are FAR too good for where we are. I do plan on attempting a much more realistic go at this challenge after the last patch. Now that one could have me kicking and screaming until FM 12 comes out

Quavis I did the same. My team played rubbish for 3 seasons then had a massive streak and got promoted. In the offseason I signed no players, dumped my best striker and and a few backups. Now im in November in the BSP with 8-10-0 and running 3rd and into the second round of the FA cup.
Just need to turn that corner and get some form

Quavis I did the same. My team played rubbish for 3 seasons then had a massive streak and got promoted. In the offseason I signed no players, dumped my best striker and and a few backups. Now im in November in the BSP with 8-10-0 and running 3rd and into the second round of the FA cup.
Just need to turn that corner and get some form

Missed out on a few players I wanted with them joining other league 1 sides. Also had to let a few players leave on frees who I did not want to but they wanted more than could offer
Finances are looking really bad and we already had a 2.4mil loan.

Key Players

Aaron McLean - I did use him more of a impact player from the bench early on but proved too good and was in starting XI every time he could be. A great season scoring the most ever in a season for us and became the all time leading scorer

Wellington - Think he settled this season and showed his true talent. Most assists in a season for us. Did want to move to a biger club but seems to be happy now.

Another great season and 4 championships in a row. Was a slow start with only 3 wins out of our first 10 games It was looking like a season to battle to stay up but a quick turn around and we slowly moved up the table before move back and to from 2nd and 1st.

Nice work Welsh. I like Colwyn Bay's logo because it looks like something an 11 year old whipped up in MS paint
Is it just me or do Portsmouth get smashed in everyone game? they are in the Npower league 2 in mine. worth $2.1m loan debt $16.25m

I could easily get a site up with a table of everyone's standings that we can all edit. For anyone who wants to update their progress, I could PM them a password which lets them update their team's progress record.

Wouldn't take me long, but would there be interest in that?

The thread can indeed be a little clumsy to navigate at times.

I've just put together a very quick site where we can collate our results:

Basically there is a main group table which will show the latest season for each person (whichever season you choose as "Current"), and you can click on the person's name and see a bit more detail and their previous seasons.

Anyone can view the group table or the individual tables, but you have to be logged in as that user to edit/add seasons.

It's pretty basic at the moment so please let me know if something is wrong with it and I'll try to fix it. And please let me know any features that would be easier/cooler/whatever.

I'll probably open it up to public registration when it's a) working better and b) not so ugly, but for now just let me know if you want to use it and I'll PM you a pass.

We seem to have picked up some better form (touch wood) of late. We've won two and drawn one of our last three league games and we beat League 1 side Southend at Roots Hall in the FA Cup 1st round. Playing Walsall away right now in the 2nd round.

Croydon Athletic - Blue Square Bet South - 2014/15With odds of 33-1, we were suprisingly expected to be in the race to the top.
Blitzing start to the season led us to a 38 game unbeaten streak leading back to the last season. Stuck behind R&D all season as they blitzed everyone except us with a 1-1 twice.
The faltered towards and the end and I caught up but it wasn't enough. Both on 90 points, they got through on PD.

Playoffs!
we drew 0-0 in the away leg against Mansfield and our home crowd packed out KT Stadium to help us bring it home.
2 injuries in the first 10 minutes crippled me but an early goal set the tone. An equaliser from Mansfield from a penalty. Ekangamene took us to 2-1 with a cracker then Mansfield equalised again.
14 minutes into extra time Fleet snuck one in and we went into shutdown mode. FINAL BABY!Darlington v Croydon Athletic - Final
They were favoured going into the game but I thought I had the edge. It had been 1 a piece during the season so it was going to be good! They had also lost the FA Trophy Final a few weeks before.
The boys were nervous in front of a crowd of 38,816, easily 10x the largest crowd we had played to before. Of defence was carved open a few times but some cracking keeping kept them out.
36 minutes and off a corner Danny Duncan nailed in a header to take it to 1-0. We decided to play it safe and play shutdown football. It got hairy at times but we stuck in for the full 90 and walked away winners!

FA Cup - Did really well to get to the 3rd round but drew Fulham :\ drew a capacity crowd to Keith Tuckey Stadium to watch us gallently try but fall to the Premier League giants
FA Trophy - played some young guns as I didnt care about the result. Lost in first round

Woo! League football!
Need to get cashed UP and start earning some money now. Havent had any upgrades yet so some new traning facilities and a ground upgrade would do us heaps. Maybe tweak the squad a bit and get a new centre mid.

As a long time loiterer, it's great to read the exploits of you lot. Jordanswinburn in Europe was a treat! I'm going to start a game once I've led Lincoln to world domination. For now, back to the shadows *lurks*

After struggling through the first ten or so games, we've now gone twelve games unbeaten (seven draws, five wins) which means that not only are we sitting in the top half, but we're only three points outside the play-off places. I don't for the first minute think we'll finish in that top seven this season, but it's a clear illustration that we're going in the right direction. We've managed to shore up our defence somewhat after shipping goals for fun in the early stages of the season, and the cup runs we've had so far have put us nicely in the black with a visit to Elland Road in the third round of the FA Cup still to come.

Looking for a bit of advice, i am in my first season with Matlock on FM11 and have Ross Hannah and Nathan Joyness up front but i am looking for another striker who will score goals and who has a lot of pace along with a central defender who has pace.

Looking for a bit of advice, i am in my first season with Matlock on FM11 and have Ross Hannah and Nathan Joyness up front but i am looking for another striker who will score goals and who has a lot of pace along with a central defender who has pace.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

For Striker I would suggest Nathaniel Jarvis or Chris Fagan. For Defence Oliver Nicholas was my quickest CB but anyone around 10 for pace and acceleration is quick enough at that level.

One word for this season 'average' we were always mid-table between 8th and 11th all season. This is not me complaining as I would have definitely have settled for 8th spot if it was offered to me at the beginning of the season. However with the strength of the squad and some of our performances this season we should have really been pushing for a play-off spot.

All the strikers were average with our top goalscorer being Daniel Nardiello with 15 goals which I am hoping he will improve on next season. The defence was impressive all season however we lacked backup players when injuries occurred which seemed to be constantly this season. There were a lot of positives to take from this season and I have a good feeling next season as I have signed some extremely promising youth players.

Aim for Next Season:
Promotion by any means possible
Add more depth to the squad
Attempt a decent cup run to take the finances out of the red and into the black

Wahey I'm back! Been away for a few days.. only Nottingham but that's a holiday for me!! Before that I'd been playing online too. Looks like I've been left behind even more.. About to start my first season in the BSP!

It was manic, it was crazy. As we were playing Eastleigh I kept checking the scores and wouldn't you know it Staines were only bloody beating them 2-1. It got to 85 minutes and I decided to settle for the points and as I did Staines scored a 3rd. We were staying up. On GOAL DIFFERENCE! Amazing. I've never had a season like it and I'll be honest, I don't want one again for a long time.

As you can see we were hardly out of 19th spot all season and it is ultimately where we finished. A very difficult first season marred by inconsistency and some really rubbish players. I had to keep strengthening throughout the season (as you will see) which probably led to the inconsistent nature of the team. Still we survived and that was the big, big thing.

FA Cup:

A win against Horton's Welling in QR2 was nice, especially after all the stick he'd been giving me, but Grays battered us in QR3 and we went no further.

FA Trophy:

A competition to forget as lower-league Billericay battered us 4-0 in our first match.

The Team:

Transfers
Lots of deadwood, lots of rubbish and half of it was brought in by me. At the beginning I couldn't sign anyone so just went for whoever. Luckily as we established ourselves in the division more players wanted to come to us and in the end I had a squad with just enough quality to stay up. As far as going forward is concerned the team has a solid backline, but my Keeper is awful. We need a new one of those, new wingers and a striker or two who can actually score.

Fans player of the year was Craig Arnott who top scored with 9 goals and was probably our best player.

My player of the year was Barry Quinn. The centre-back was no way first choice but established himself and ended up being the rock that helped keep our Goals Against column low and ultimately helped keep us up.

Best Moment: The 3-0 home win against Maidenhead. A defender playing in goal and down to 10 men after 60 minutes. We were 2-0 up and I expected us to blow it. Instead Deeney scored an outrageous 3rd and we won it easily. And my defender kept a clean sheet.

Worst Moment: The 2-1 defeat to Dartford in November. We were all set for a well earned point when a Dartford striker properly pushed my CB over outside of the box. He was the last man so the striker then sloted home. Livid doesn't even cover it and the ref didn't see it. Pretty much summed up the early part of the season.

Aims:

Improve the squad nearly everywhere except the back which is fairly strong.
Try and earn some money in order to boost finances (especially important as the board have slashed my wage bill by £1000)
Don't be anywhere near a relegation dog fight come the end of the season.

Career Overview

Code:

Season League Position Achievements
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2011/12 Blue Square South 19th Avoided relegation

With finances even tighter than last season I was unable to make many moves in the transfer market, so it was a rather quiet off season...I tried to get my chairman to get a parent club, which he did but then he "couldn't find any appropriate clubs".... The start of the season started almost as bad as last season and we again struggled to get points against any teams, although we were performing well. Fitness was a key aspect a well a not having a good goalscorer.

I found a few players to tighten my defence but couldn't really find any decent attackers, or none that weren't as good as my current players. So again we just struggled to get anywhere in the season, although I never thought we would get relegated, unlike last season. A good FA Cup run helped finances for a short while but we never played a high profile team. The team was severely lacking in confidence and this was majorly affecting our performances, throwing away 2-0 leads on numerous occasions and missing chance upon chance... It wasn't great to watch.

In February I finally found a striker. Phillip Rogers. He had been released from Arsenal the previous year, was a under 21 republic of ireland player and requested just £80 a week. His stats were obviously not great, but he had high numbers in the physical attributes and good stats for dribbling and finishing. He scored within 20 seconds of his debut and then scored 7 goals in his first 8 games. Our form increased in this time and we moved clear of the relegation zone, for a moment I actually thought we might move further up the table.

But then he suffered from lack of confidence and this also meant we suffered poor form again. A really poor end o the season meant we finished no higher than last season...

Season League League position Other acheivments
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2011/12 Blue Square South 19th None
2012/13 Blue Square South 19th None

Goals/Expectations for next Season

Any improvement from last season would be good. I'm going to spend a lot of time searching through the free transfer market this time and am determined to get a good amount of signings. I'm happy with a lot of my team, but still have many improvements, mainly in midfield.

Welsh Wizard: WTF mate, a 4th straight season as champions, and 3 cup trophies to boot! :P You're making all the rest of us look terrible! I do love all the ex-united players in the squad though!

wriches: site looks great! Perhaps add one more column to the main page with achievements for the last season, so that is visible without having to open each person individually. Everything else looks great. Shoot me over a login when you get time

deafncat: Looks like once you made it out of the BSS you're on a roll

Terk: GL! Glad to see the season is turning around

Ridleys: ROFL! when did I become the Crystal Palace manger? :P
heat02: Good solid start for your first BSP season

Wavelberry: Congrats on staying up! That last day of the season must have been quite the nail biter.

Mitsuko: Unlucky Those ruts where confidence is low are really hard to break out of. Good luck for next season!

Finally got some FM myself today (day off!). On my final pre-season game atm so I should have an update up soonish.

Basically there is a main group table which will show the latest season for each person (whichever season you choose as "Current"), and you can click on the person's name and see a bit more detail and their previous seasons.

Anyone can view the group table or the individual tables, but you have to be logged in as that user to edit/add seasons.

It's pretty basic at the moment so please let me know if something is wrong with it and I'll try to fix it. And please let me know any features that would be easier/cooler/whatever.

I'll probably open it up to public registration when it's a) working better and b) not so ugly, but for now just let me know if you want to use it and I'll PM you a pass.

Looks very good, and can only get better the more people that join! Link if you don't mind please? =)

Quavis BSP was easy. I think I had the team setup for awhile just needed to kick it into gear and get the squad gelling together. Now In L2 i picked up 2 great foreign players but they cant speak english. So that went down the toilet

Last season ended with a play-off semi-final loss. Its well documented I was unhappy with my current team, and that I went way overboard in offseason transfers. The goal for this season is simple: Gain promotion as Champions. Transfers In/Out:

In: Most of my transfers in were documented in my last post. However, I did end up making two additional signings that may end up being notable (yes I know, I need to stop signing people )

Matt Darko: The ex-Manchester United prospect was released when his contract expired on june 30th. My scouts rated him leading championship potential, so I had to go after him. I don't expect him to start much this season, but he will feature on the subs bench and see some playing time.

Oliver Bell: Another Ex-united prospect who was released on june 30th. I had scouted Oliver way back in March and my best scout said he was good PREM potential. I was surprised to see him get released and immediately requested an updated report. My scout still believes he is good PREM potential, so signing him wasn't even a question. His stats aren't that great, but he will be starting at DR from the start in hopes I can somehow develop that potential. The only downside to this signing is it means my project will no longer be starting, but considering I was unable to find him a tutor, that might be a good thing.

Out: 4 more players have left the club since the last update. ALL of them were unhappy and I just wanted them gone, regardless of what I got in return. I did put 50% sell on clauses on all of them, so I do hope they do well at their next clubs. Of the players leaving, only Garston featured at all last season and I have cover for the position.

Friendlies

With the player sales over the off-season bringing our finances almost back to the black, I wasn't looking for big money paydays from friendlies. I wanted moral to be very high by the end so that we can start the league calendar off on a good start. Aberdeen was adamant about playing us for some reason though, so I scheduled it early so as not to affect moral.

Game 1 - Chippenham vs Aberdeen - 0 - 2 loss : As mentioned I wanted this game as early as possible so as not to affect moral. However, I couldn't remember when the players got back from holiday. This match ended up being played only the day after they returned, and everyone's fitness was a disaster (60s to start lol). Despite having no fitness at all, we kept the game close. My probable first team played just the first half and we went in level. Even the subs who played second half (I changed out all but the keeper), did very well until late on. It was a good start.

Game 2 - Chippenham vs Southend - 2 -2 Draw: League 1 southend was the other big club to want to play us this year. Again I underestimated fitness levels for this match (I forgot to rest players in between this and Aberdeen). The first team had no legs even from the start and we conceded twice early (should have been 3). From there we managed to hold on to half-time and I could bring on some slightly fresher legs. I again subbed out the entire side at the half. The second team again played very well. Fitness levels evened out near the end of the match and we were able to get back in the game. In stoppage time Gibson let me know he wants his first team spot back and leveled the game. A great result on shaky legs against a good opposition.

Game 3 - Chippenham vs Calne - 2 - 0 Win: With the two big games out of the way it was time to try and rebuild moral. To keep it realistic, I play local club teams during this phase of friendlies. Fitness levels were still poor, but we dominated the match. A couple new signings found the net, and the result was never in doubt.

Game 5 - Chippenham vs Devizes - 5 - 0 Win: Another big win + clean sheet = happy manager. Steven Hooper proved in this match that he can play the full 90 minutes and knocked Marko Mitrovic to the subs bench.

Game 6 - Chippenham vs Swindon - 1 - 1 Draw: The final big test of the pre-season. Chippenham's parent club is league 1 Swindon. The team played very well, and was further helped when Swindon had a man sent off for a last man foul. With the man advantage I decided to see whether we could play attacking football. We did, and played very well, but an absolutely brilliant game by Swindon's keeper stopped us from taking the win we deserved. If he hadn't been on his game, it could easily have been 3 or 4-1. The draw didn't hurt moral, and that was the most important thing

Game 7 - Chippenham vs Melksham - 4 - 0 Win: The final game to prep for the season and it went well. Steven Hooper earned his second hat trick of the pre-season. If he can keep this up against slightly better opposition, he is going to be a fantastic player for Chippenham long term (champ potential).

Overall, it was a fantastic pre-season. There are only 3 starters from last year still in the first 11, but the new boys seem to be gelling quickly, which is fantastic. Moral going into the opening matches is great, and I'm hoping we can start strong and put together a good run. The squad is deep enough to withstand ANY injury crises (I have WAY too many players lol). I'm going to try and loan out a few people to get them more playing time, but I doubt I will get mamy takers. Either way, I'm hoping with a big squad we can be competitive on multiple fronts. That being said, if fixture congestion becomes a problem, the cups will be sacrificed. Automatic promotion is the goal for the season, and nothing else will get in the way!

Haha maybe not, just lost 5-2 to Scunthorpe
Ouch :\
Going out to buy a 60gb SSD drive now. Once I have windows on, first thing to install and see how it runs is FM11 hopefully there is a decent speed increase!

Just beat Wigan 3-0 to go up to 6th in the table. There are some absolute stars brewing in this team. Carroll, Ibrahim, Santiago, Henshall and Lopez Sanchez, to name a few. I HAVE to try and sign Lopez Sanchez at some point, I need him permanently.

Haha maybe not, just lost 5-2 to Scunthorpe
Ouch :\
Going out to buy a 60gb SSD drive now. Once I have windows on, first thing to install and see how it runs is FM11 hopefully there is a decent speed increase!

Keep us posted! I've ordered this which will not only be a solid state drive but TWO in RAID configuration and should hopefully be blazing fast. Most of the people in the hardware threads here are trying to run 30/40 leagues at a time. Since I only play the dafuge challenge, I can't even imagine how quickly 5 leagues will run!

I paid for 2 day shipping on Thursday before learning that UPS take a long weekend at Thanksgiving time here in the states, so I won't be getting it tomorrow.

Haha windoze 7 installed, firefox installed, graphics/sounds/network installed, FM11 installed/patched, forums loaded
in that order :P
its running damn quick now! maybe its just in my mind but it seems to be heaps faster. Wish I had a bunch of them to run in RAID but im poor and they are exxy well worth it though so far!
just doing little things on the drives etc is super quick!@
I got 1x OCZ 60G Vertex Series SSD

WOW Just played Colchester (L1) in round 4 of the FA Cup at home to a packed house. We scored on 35 minutes and dominated the whole game. Then they slotted one in at 90+4 :|
THEN with 2 minutes left in ET, My new striker Rory Patterson gave a big slide tackle on their striker IN THE BOX AND GOT SENT OFF AND A PENALTY. 2-1 Im gutted right now

Coming season ending in the year of our Lord 2016. Ashton United fans could look back on a season starting in frustration and ending in rejoice. First choice goalie was out with a long term injury, leaving it to the subs to perform, which they did not do to the best of their abilities. League and FA cup were both a failure before starting, with exits in their very first rounds. A new keeper was introduced to the squad, having served 11 seasons straight for Crystal Palace, 36 year old Speroni was no longer needed and was happy to come see his career out at Ashton. With and older experience in goal we started turning losses and draws to wins and went all the way to rise as champions of L2 and winners of JPT.

Alot of players loaned out this season and many sold for free with transfer clauses, only a few players that was signed to first team are worth mentioning for this season, as well as a few who really played good.

GK - Julian Speroni - Was a true star and hero in the back, always good for a beer in after training (he does have gambling issues thu)

DC - Jonathan Lunt - Has been in the squad for 3 seasons, and proved himself this season for starting 11. Doubt he will develop more, but should still be able to cope with L1

DC - Nikos Symeou - Young greek with bundles of potential, have high hopes for this one, his second season at Ashton.

MC - Tyler French - Was a vital part of the midfield this season and has been with Ashton since BSN

MC - Ollie! - Another great season for ollie, clearly a team, fan and coach favourite. Always there with a smile and a dirty joke when you are feeling low.

Oh look a striker(Mark Cullen) got hurt 3-4 months in a reserves game for fitness. Awesome.

Games:

#1 vs Bristol City.

Chris Garner MISSES a PK in the 25th minute.

Dembele scores for Bristol in the 37th. 0-1

Kotev on for Vincent in the 60th.

Cullen on for Afobe in the 70th.

Cullen scores on a superb solo effort in the 77th. 1-1

Bolanos on for Nouble in the 81st.

1-1 draw.

LC round 3 draw AT Milwall.

wtf Saric gets an international call up AFTER I dont retain him and hes lacking fitness.

so tempting to take an int'l job.

6th game against Blackburn. TWO disallowed goals after going down 0-2 and 1-3. should be up 4-3.

Might have to go into full boar attacking/overlap/work into box mode since I looked really dangerous with that.

currently 0-3-3.

oh neat it crashed before I saved. fuuuuuuu. Now i'm probably going to lose by more

Renaud Cohade having problems settling(ugh). Given time away.

1st win in game 7. woo. In 16th.

Just went on a super extensive Brazil youngster search(either my 20/20 scout or my other multiple 20 potential scouts) to great success. Looking to grab a few projected LEADING x players for relatively cheap, some after their loans are done ugh.

12-31 important loan dates for William and Ronaldinho(or someone else idk), Paulino.

3rd rd FA CUP draw @QPR(L1)-

Currently in 13th after a few wins over bottom half tabled teams.(Bristol City is the terrible team, and I played them game 1 and got a draw only ) They are 0-1-15 as I type this. wow I suck.

Argentina has a few awesome young prospects, but they tend to carry a higher price tag.

I hate how most players would fail getting a work permit. Couple of projected GOOD strikers can be had for 55k and 180k from an Israeli team.

uh oh a team is bidding on my backup Brazilian projected leading striker target(17 years old). Can't afford the three guys I *want* (two strikers and a DC). They got him.

Signed Andres Lund(ST)- Good proj. EPL Striker-18 years old-Free Transfer-3 years $975/week. Good deal.

I spent a really long time looking for players, scouting and reviewing my own squad in the pre-season. First 2 games we lost, I was then expecting another season of misery. But then we beat Welling 2-0 away from home and suddenly things are looking good. 4 wins in a row now and sitting in 5th position! Things are coming round.